Writing in today’s Times newspaper, Lord Matt Ridley, best-selling author of “The Rational Optimist,” commented on the mystery of Flight MH370 as being “the most baffling disappearance in history.”

Matt argues that none of the possible explanations seem remotely plausible, yet one of them must be true. After debunking the scenarios that have been suggested so far, including an on-board accident, terrorism or suicide, he goes on to say that he is “struggling to find any unsolved case of mass disappearance that is remotely as baffling as this one, even from before the age of satellites.”

Matt suggests that following such a tragedy, planes should surely now be fitted with satellite tracking devices. He also posits that as some kind of human intervention seems to be at the root of the disappearance, pilotless planes may come to be seen as less dangerous than piloted ones.